Call for Papers

INTERROGATING INTEGRATION

Bridging the Gaps: Understanding Current Mobilities in the Caribbean and Latin America and their Policy Implications

York University, Toronto

May 13, 2019

Integration is a contested concept – most especially in the field of refugee and forced migration studies. Describing the act of combining distinct parts into a whole, the term is apt for advancing the inclusion of migrants within political communities, the mixture of diverse stakeholder perspectives, and more progressive global governance regimes. But integration is also coupled with processes of exclusion. State political boundaries rest on ongoing colonial practices and categories of thought that leave little room for Indigenous perspectives. The regional harmonization of state laws and policies regarding border controls, interdiction, economic migration, and asylum reinforce the contingency of political membership upon citizenship. Integration also highlights perpetual tensions between unity and diversity within and across diverse political communities.

CARFMS 2019 will bring together scholars, practitioners, and those with lived experience of forced migration to reflect on the meanings, and pathways, to integration. CARFMS 2019 invites applications for innovative panels, workshops, sessions, presentations and demonstrations on the following themes:

How do we define, support, and appraise the integration of refugees into communities?

How do and should we integrate policies and practices for human mobilities?

How can we support postcolonial refugee scholarship in relation to membership in political communities, with an emphasis on indigenous perspectives and migrant experience?

How can we integrate local knowledge and practices in constructive ways?

1. How do we define, support and measure the integration of refugees into communities?

A dominant theme of refugee settlement research and practice focuses on whether and how refugees are included, or excluded, from the society in which they reside. Early models of integration emphasised employment and participation in the market economy (Levitas, 2013), and continue to be seen as key markers of integration by many policy makers and settlement programs. However, this focus has been challenged by post-colonial scholars as failing to acknowledge the impact of how social, structural and political factors in host communities create social exclusion (Davies, 2005; Galabuzi, 2006; Labonte, 2004).

In this theme, we welcome papers that

Critically reflect on integration theories and settlement policies

Report on promising practices that support social change and refugee integration and how they relate to settlement policies at the local, regional, national and/or international level

Identify and improve methodologies for the study of integration at the individual and societal levels

2. How do and should we integrate policies and practices for human mobilities?

Policies and practices designed to exclude forced migrants are relatively well integrated at the national and international level and their effectiveness for systematic exclusion is in part supported by purposeful fragmentation of categories of migration. It is becoming increasingly clear that the global refugee regime is out of step with current patterns of migration, the reality of which is messy and cannot be reduced to the existing frameworks. There has been a global recognition of the need to address increasing migration pressures, as evidenced by the Global Compact on Refugees and the Global Compact on Migration. However, there is also a growing movement to restrict migration by country of origin, religion, and reasons for migration. Increased restrictions in the face of increased pressure to migrate are also resulting in more irregular migration. In this theme, we welcome papers and workshops addressing laws, policies and practices pertaining to the integration of policies for a range of migration pathways.

How are international legal and policy tools integrating versus separating different migration pathways?

What are the consequences of separating out different migration pathways for policies and for migrants themselves?

Are there promising pathways or practices for integrating different migration pathways, resources, and policies?

3. Critical and postcolonial refugee perspectives: Integrating scholarship with indigenous people and refugees.

Displacement caused by violence is not limited to refugee-producing countries. Settler states, like Canada and the US, and the indigenous peoples whose land settlers live on have histories of cultural genocide, separation, isolation and exclusion from the mainstream polity. Recognition of others’ needs, rights, and livelihoods in itself may not be sufficient as indigenous scholars in Canada have argued (Coulthard, 2014). Likewise, integration into an existing political community may not be desirable or politically acceptable to indigenous nations who have faced forced family separation through residential schools, loss of land and/or livelihoods, and the systemic social exclusions produced through these state-led practices.

What would a world that includes both indigenous and refugee peoples look like?

What does decolonizing refugee studies look like?

How do we imagine, identify, and translate refugee and indigenous scholarship using indigenous knowledge and practices?

How are reception and settlement practices shaped by settler histories and geographies?

How do we understand the current forces of displacement in their historical and political context?

4. Integrating local knowledge and practices

The need for local and contextualized research and a greater attention to refugee voices continues alongside the need for high level analysis of global pathways, patterns and policies. How can we better facilitate the integration of the knowledge of those with lived experience of migration, and members of the local communities in which they seek asylum or resettlement; practitioners providing settlement services; researchers studying forced migration; and policy makers? Following on the partnership themes raised in the 2018 conference, we seek papers addressing the following issues:

How do we support policies and practices that promote, respond to and include different knowledges?

Are there methodological innovations that can better integrate these different knowledges?

What are promising practices for ensuring that different voices, knowledges and practices are included in the development of policies at the local, national and international levels?

Bridging Day CARFMS/CALACs Collaborative Mini-Conference

May 13, 2019

York University

Bridging the Gaps: Understanding Current Mobilities in the Caribbean and Latin America and their Policy Implications

On May 13, a Bridging Day Preconference will be held between the meeting of the Canadian Association for Latin American and Caribbean Studies (CALACS) and the conference of the Canadian Association for Refugee and Forced Migration Studies (CARFMS). This Bridging Day seeks to encourage integration between the two associations and addresses the growing complexity and severity of forced migration in the hemisphere. Participation in the Bridging Day will have a separate registration with a small fee to cover lunch and fees for a guest speaker. Details for this preconference will be released shortly.